


Everything Breaks

by womanaction



Series: Buffy Meta [8]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 11:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11034936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/womanaction/pseuds/womanaction
Summary: Three pieces of meta originally posted to Tumblr in 2013 revolving around the characterization of Buffy, Willow, and Xander in Season 6.





	Everything Breaks

A lot of people hate season 6 of Buffy.

You know, that’s fine. I get it, I really do. I’m a huge Buffy fan, but there are definitely things that grind my gears: Riley Finn, “Beer Bad”, and the disappearance of Miss Kitty Fantastico, to name a few. There are also some popularly hated aspects that I love, like the appearance of Dawn and “Doublemeat Palace”. Season 6 was bitter, depressing, and graphic, especially from episode 9 (“Smashed”) on. It’s not my favorite season by a long shot - that honor belongs to its predecessor, 5.

5 is a perfect, happy, lovely season. Sure, it’s got loads of death, mayhem, and heartbreak, but in the end all of the characters fulfill their seasonal arcs in a very satisfying way. Season 6 is about the breaking of that, the undoing of all that is season 5, and that's not a bad thing, at least not in my book. Change is inevitable, and good characters can never be static.

I find that watching Season 5 after Season 6 is quite interesting and rewarding. Season 6 is where the characters break; season 5 is where they were built. Neither one undermines their essential characterization, but instead shows a new side, a darkness to every light and vice versa. Season 6 is an essential counterpart to Season 5, and I want to take that character by character.

 _Buffy:_ Buffy’s season 5 arc is layered, as a main character’s should be. At the surface, she is discovering what it means to be a Slayer, as is evident from the first episode (“Buffy vs. Dracula”) of the season, where she is told that her “power is rooted in darkness”. Instead of accepting this at face value, she reinstates Giles as her Watcher in order to investigate her roots. At the same time, she must cope with her new sister, Dawn, and the role she takes as sibling and, eventually, guardian/surrogate mother. Buffy is learning how to be Buffy, how to be a Slayer and a sister, a killer and a caretaker. Eventually, her duties converge and she sacrifices herself to save her sister and the world.

In season 6, that all goes to hell - literally. After being pulled out of heaven, the world becomes Buffy’s hell. She is unable to connect to the sister she gave her life for. Slaying gives her little joy, because she is in the world but not part of it. Desperate, she turns to the underworld, flirting with death by way of sexcapades with Spike. At times, she even lets go of her duties and responsibilities as both Buffy Summers and the Chosen One because they have become meaningless to her. Buffy willingly gives up again and again what she fought for tooth and nail in season 5, because in light of what happened to her, those things don’t really matter.

Buffy reacts again and again to the changes in season 6, like Willow and Tara moving in to the Summers’ residence, Giles leaving, and the Xander and Anya drama. She is perhaps the most aware of these changes, and she is affected by each and every one of them. Her world in season 5: protecting Dawn, the Slayer-Watcher relationship, the Scoobies, school, Riley (until “Into the Woods”), her mom (until “I Was Made To Love You”); all of this been broken down. She starts out season 6 alone. She no longer needs to protect Dawn, and Spike seems to have assumed that duty, anyway. Giles has left for England, and although he comes back, it is only temporary. The Scoobies are having their own problems, covered below. When she tries to return to school, she finds out she’s in over her head.

“I’ve got power,” Buffy had said in “Checkpoint” (5x12). This simple phrase could honestly describe her entire character arc in season 5. She learns the source of her Slayer power, and discovers what it means to be a sister, friend, lover, mother, and savior. She faces up against a god - and wins. She has the power.

What is Buffy’s season 6 mantra? “I don’t know.” She has lost her place in the world, in her family, and in her friend group. Her physical power remains, but her drive to slay is gone. Everyone expects things from her that she cannot provide. Each cast member expects their “ideal Buffy”, but that is exactly what she is unable to be. In “Smashed” (6x9), Spike calls her a “little lost girl”. Indeed.

Buffy learned to be the best Slayer who ever lived in season 5. In season 6, Buffy learned to be Buffy. This is the only season where Buffy does not save the world - instead, Buffy learns how to save herself.

 _Xander:_ In season 5, Xander has to cope with the different sides of himself, as clearly shown in 5x3, “The Replacement”. Although he may not be a Slayer or a witch, he is becoming useful, and he often finds it hard to be confident in his newfound abilities. He’s growing up, moving out, and making commitments - specifically, to his girlfriend Anya. After witnessing the disaster that was Buffy and Riley’s breakup, he immediately comes clean with her about his feelings and admits his love for her. In “The Gift”, he proposes to her, signifying his readiness to make a truly adult commitment. He is definitely feeling good about himself.

But things are never that simple. The engagement stays secret until “All The Way”, 6x6, because Xander is afraid to make it real. He even goes so far as to summon a demon to discover if he and Anya will make it after all (“Once More With Feeling”). Dependable Xander is suddenly running scared, and his cold feet take him away from the altar. The normally observant Xander is also missing a lot of things going on with his friends: it takes him longer than one might expect to realize that Willow is overusing magic, and he seems to willfully blind himself to the Spike/Buffy dynamic (as in “Gone”). For perhaps the only time in the series, Xander really is too caught up with his own life to try to take care of everybody else.

After the not-actual-finale of season four, “Primeval”, Xander seems to be feeling a lot more confident in himself. He can finally recognize his place in the gang as the heart, the glue that holds them together, and he is proud of that fact. Xander is most at peace with himself when the group is closest, which is why the out-of-high-school transition was so rough for him. Everything changed in Season 4, from Willow discovering her orientation to Spike becoming an ally and Giles living the life of the unemployed. Nothing was “right”. Even his place as “military guy” was usurped by Riley. In Season 5, however, the group is finding its balance again. Xander is now “carpenter guy”, Willow and Tara have a happy relationship, Spike’s out on his own again, and Giles buys the Magic Box. Things are changing, but in a way that brings the group together. It is a good time to be Xander.

However, in Season 6, this tide is reversed (partly due to Xander’s own actions in proposing to Anya). Tensions abound, from Giles leaving to Tara and Willow. Even Dawn is getting into trouble. This narrows Xander’s vision even more, because he cannot relax with his friends and forget about his marriage worries. Usually the emotionally strong one on the outskirts of trouble, he is now in the thick of it. The basement looms before him again as he worries that their relationship could turn out like that of his parents (“Hell’s Bells”). After abandoning Anya at the altar, he is miserable and down on himself, but he is also no longer able to ignore his friends’ problems. In “Entropy”, Spike reveals to Xander his former sexual relationship with Buffy, and Xander’s righteous anger in the next episode, “Seeing Red”, is only blocked by the tragedy of the shooting. Xander is now forced back into his position as the heart simply because all of the new variables have left the equation. Spike has left for Africa, Giles is still in England, Anya is out of the picture, and Tara is dead. Of the remaining Scoobies, Dawn is freaked, Buffy is barely holding it together, and Willow has turned to the dark side. 

The end of Season 6 is Xander’s time to shine. He is a “comfortador” (“Restless”), and he is the only one with enough strength left to ground Willow. His name, Alexander, literally means “defender/protector”, and he does so not physically but emotionally. He is the only person left who can reach Willow, and this experience, like the Combo Buffy in “Primeval”, helps to re-establish and strengthen his character in the next season. He has a tendency to see himself as “useless”, especially in Season 6 when he hurts Anya while trying to protect her from himself. In the end, Xander’s greatest weapon is his ability to care for the ones he loves unconditionally. Season 5 Xander was able to define himself by what he could do, but Season 6 Xander was forced to redefine himself by his incredible, self-giving love.

 _Willow:_ Season 5 was a stable, growing time for Willow. After her tumultuous freshman year, sophomore year was a positive breeze. More confident in her relationship with Tara as well as her increasing magical ability, “New Willow” seems to feel more in touch with herself and her friends. Despite the worry she subconsciously expresses in the Season 4 finale “Restless" that she will be "found out” to be the uncool, nerdy Willow of seasons past, she is able to become self-assured of her own power. She is finding her limits, but not pushing them (until Glory attacks Tara in “Tough Love”), and becomes a witch of such formidable power that Buffy calls her the Slayer’s “big gun” at the end of Season 5. At times Willow still searches for her courage, but she has realized the importance of the people she holds dearest. With the growth of her confidence and power also comes a knowledge that she  _matters,_ and that her actions can have real, quantifiable results.

On the other hand, in Season 6 Willow begins to doubt not only herself and her actions, but those around her. The self-confidence she gained in Season 5 is now being put to selfish gain. She convinces the rest of the group to aid her in Buffy’s resurrection and then expects the resurrectee to flood her with thanks (“After Life”). After a fight with Tara regarding her reckless use of magic, she wipes her girlfriend’s memory  twice (“All The Way”, “Tabula Rasa”). Her magic is out of control in a way it has not been since Season 4’s “Something Blue”. Eventually, this culminates in Willow going “dark” after Tara’s death in “Seeing Red”.

Willow’s fall comes ultimately from her self-confidence issues that she fought in Season 5. After Buffy’s death, she is elected leader of the Scoobies, but this newfound power is short-lived. She learns, however, that she is not as infallible as she might have previously thought, as in “Bargaining” when her concentration in the resurrection spell is broken. So convinced that she is doing the right thing in bringing Buffy back, Willow is completely unable to deal with Buffy’s confession that she was in heaven. The revelation shakes her to the point that she tries to tamper with Buffy’s memory as well (“Tabula Rasa”) to essentially “undo” the time the Slayer spent in heaven, Willow  _needs_ to be right and she needs to be powerful because she has built up her self-esteem upon those values. If she turns out to be less than virtuous and/or magically weak, she will see herself as worthless. Despite her progress in Season 5, the events of Season 6 prove to Willow who she really is, and, like Buffy, she begins to hate that person. Dark Willow speaks of “normal” Willow in the third person and with disgust for what she was and could be again.

Willow’s relationship with Tara becomes strained. So used to depending on her girlfriend to be her rock and her guide, Willow is unable to cope with the idea of Tara leaving her. In Season 5, when Glory wiped Tara’s mind, Willow gave her everything to try to destroy Glory and bring Tara back. She had to take care of her girlfriend like she would a small child: feeding her, sheltering her, etc., and she also had to deal with Tara’s mental troubles. Sometimes, Tara was not even able to recognize who Willow was. Despite this, in Season 6, Willow has become desperate enough to duplicate Glory’s act by erasing fights from Tara’s memory. In “Once More With Feeling”, Tara points out the parallel, singing: “I’m under your spell/God, how can this be?/Playing with my memory/ _You know I’ve been through hell_ ”. Willow’s desperate attempts to hold onto her love end up driving her away, leaving Willow in a tailspin of depression and addiction. The young witch continues to abuse magic, a plotline that has been developing since all the way back in Season 2. 

The difference between Season 5 Willow and Season 6 Willow is mostly in her use of and confidence in power. Although Season 5 Willow is confident and relatively secure, she often doubts her magical capabilities. When she goes after Glory in “Tough Love”, Spike correctly identifies it as an intentionally suicidal action. She does not believe she can take down a hellgod and come out okay, but avenging (and possibly restoring) Tara is more important than her personal well-being. However, when a similar situation occurs in Season 6 after Warren’s shooting of Tara in “Seeing Red”, Willow has _become_ her power, so much that she immediately goes on a thrilling attack spree. Tara’s death was merely the trigger to the inevitable release of Willow’s growing darkness. Although Willow did love Tara truly and lost more than she could bear when Tara died, she was also incredibly in love with her own power. 

Willow is only able to come down from her darkness when Xander, her oldest friend, lays his life down before her. He explains to her that he loves “ _crayon-breaky Willow_  and I love … _scary veiny Willow_ _”_ (“Grave”). Willow has been trying to dissociate herself from her roots since Season 4, at the earliest, and she finds it impossible to comprehend that anybody could find her worthwhile without her power. Instead of love, she is worshiping fear. Yet Xander tells her that his love is unconditional, and that even if she ends the world she will not lose him. 

Willow’s insecurity is so great that she assumes one fight with Tara will estrange them forever, that Buffy only values her for her magical abilities, and that Xander no longer views her as his closest friend. She attempts to compensate for these insecurities by forcing people away or manipulating them with magic, because she cannot understand that she has their love no matter what. Her story is Season 6 is so often paralleled with Buffy’s because both of them feel that nobody will accept them for who they are (Willow for her “real”, geeky self and Buffy for her “dark side” expressed in her relationship with Spike). Xander got through to her because he would not allow her to push him away; as in “The Zeppo”, he expressed that he was not afraid to die. If she was going to end the world, she would have to start with him. But she is unable to do that, because “crayon-breaky” Willow and “scary veiny” Willow are simply two aspects of her over-all self. When she finally understands that, she allows her facade of power to crack, letting Xander in. She is beginning to grasp that she does not have to be powerful or brilliant or even good all of the time to “keep” the love she has gained; it is given freely, and will not so easily waste away.


End file.
